Isn't the president's military commitment to Australia simply an admission of defeat in the Middle East?

What would constitute a “victory” in the middle east?

Significant influence over the harvest and distribution of the oil. Is there some other secret reason that the US military is engaged in the ME?

At a time of cutting our Navy placing 2,500 against the Chinese is laughable. The Chinese Communist Army has over 2 million and a reserve millions.

I’m not sure what the Administration is hoping to accomplish.

It’s their Middle-East countries fucking oil, isn’t it?
In my view no country should be engaged in a military (or an otherwise unfairly influencing way) in whichever other country to benefit from whatever riches that country has to offer.
I know, I am naive, but that is my look on life.
Buy the effing oil, don’t ‘steal’ it I say to which ever country is doing so.

You know someone is wise when he makes a decision to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again expecting different results.

You also learn a lot about those who call him a chicken and insist he should just keep doing the same things even harder.

@saint That’s the way the cards are dealt. There’s not an even distribution of natural resources. It is their oil.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought What mistakes?
@Blackberry True enough. But somebody is going to exert influence over a disorganized and tribal civilization in order to control the harvest and distribution of a nearly priceless resource. That is a fact. We may hate it, or disapprove, or wish it was otherwise, but it is still true. So who is it going to be?

@saint The ‘tribal civilizations’ themselves?

@saint the premise of your question. You seem to feel that we need to control the harvest and distribution of these resources: ” the expense in lives and money will be much greater than if we had settled the issue,today, in the ME”.

I am not aware that we need to control these things. In my opinion, attempting to control things has resulted in huge expenses for us already of money and lives. I think the Chinese, and other sensible peoples, laugh at our efforts to control the middle east, and happily buy the oil they need with minor impediment.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought
Oh well.The rest of the world is sensible. They laugh at us only when we give them a chance to exploit their selfish ambitions at the expense of our own. As if their goals were more nobel than ours. As if only we are stupid. As if they are more wise. If we shut up, everything will be OK. Right?
Oh well.

No, it’s in response to Chinese aggression in the area.

@pageiv 2,500 Americans vs a million Chinese is hardly fair, you’re right. The Chinese should bring in a million more or two actually. Heck bring them all on! Obama only sent 2,500 Americans but they are all armed with nuclear weapons. Lol.

@saint I think it’s too much of a stretch connecting sending a few troops to Australia and “defeat” in the middle east over oil control issues. Bush and Cheney might have done it for the oil but obviously, it’s a different time now for America. You will never see the US military stationed in those oil fields. That’s way beneath them. US oil companies are bidding against China to extract the oil. I heard they lost and some even did not bother to make an offer.

Bush and Cheney went to Iraq for all the stupid reasons but Americans did not go there for the oil. They can’t be defeated in a fight they did not engaged in in the first place.

I think it’s symbolic. We don’t really need them here, but it is a sign that hopefully the US will defend us if we need them to.